'A great time to write'

Editor-publisher VK Karthika reflects on the publishing industry in India at the 2nd Annual Attic lecture

September 26, 2017 04:25 pm | Updated September 29, 2017 10:25 am IST

LR: Karthika VK. Special Arrangement

LR: Karthika VK. Special Arrangement

As part of the graduation ceremony of Anita's attic, a writing programme conducted by author Anita Nair, editor and publisher VK Karthika delivered the 2nd Attic lecture at the Rangoli Art Centre recently. She traced the journey of Indian publishing in English and reflected on her stint in the industry.

She started the lecture with a reflection on what keeps editors invested in their jobs, in the time of numerous distractions and social media updates. She pointed out, “Books are one of the best ways to get some solitude, understand complexities and a way to gain new perspectives.”

She says, "In the 1990s, things were very different from the multitude of options that are available to readers now. Indian publishing in English has come a long way. Twenty years ago, you did not have any access to practices in the industry outside your geographical location. We were learning a lot by trial and error. David Davidar was a pioneer. He put a good system in place, that met international standards. Print runs were not very high in those days. We would ask writers to write books for small advances and they would oblige. We did, occasionally, chance upon very good writers who deserved to be published."

She adds,"However, things changed dramatically when Arundhati Roy won the Booker in 1997. Indian English writing suddenly became the new buzz. Unlike Amitav Ghosh and Vikram Seth, Arundhati was seen as a homegrown writer, writing about her experiences in the country and published by an Indian publishing house that was born to publish her. This resulted in huge advances being paid to authors for writing the next big Indian novel. A lot of middling novels took time to come out since they did not go much beyond a mere proposal. A few years on, Chetan Bhagat came to the scene and changed the face of publishing in India."

Karthika states, "Chetan had to struggle to get people to take him seriously. His success meant that the publishing industry discovered that there are lakhs of readers in India and not merely thousands. A slew of young writers followed in the years to come and now bestseller charts are dominated by Indian writers. It was also aided by the fact that many of these books were adapted into movies and that brought more readers into the fold. I think it was perfectly all right."

Another factor that changed publishing in India was the emergence of big stores stocking up on books. "Unlike neighbourhood stores that could stock up about 10 copies, stores such as Landmark or Crossword could stock up many more copies. It also meant that more people began to try out books.”

She points out, "It is a great time to be a writer and an editor now. There are good works getting translated from other languages into English and a lot of extremely good non-fiction is being written. It is an eco-system I love being part of. I would like to read much more than I do though."

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